Lincoln-Sudbury football bounces back from last week's heartbreak with a big win over Waltham

Scott Souza ssouza@wickedlocal.com

Friday

Oct 5, 2018 at 10:05 PMOct 5, 2018 at 11:43 PM

Once those seven days were over following last week’s heartbreaking loss to Acton-Boxboro, it took about another quarter for the Warriors to fully kick back into gear before pulling away in a 40-6 romp past Waltham.

SUDBURY – Seven days seemed like an eternity for the Lincoln-Sudbury football team.

Once those seven days were over following last week’s heartbreaking loss to Acton-Boxboro, it took about another quarter for the Warriors to fully kick back into gear before pulling away in a 40-6 romp past Waltham.

“It was tingling in our bones all week,” said senior lineman and captain Cal Keeney of the aftermath of the A-B game, in which L-S rallied from down 28-0 in the second half to take the lead before falling, 37-35, on a touchdown pass with four seconds left in the game. “Everyone was just saying that we need to get better. We need to get to that point. People were crying after that game last week. I’m never going to get a chance against A-B again because they’re in a different division than us. I can’t forget that.

“We can’t forget that ever.”

L-S coach Tom Lopez said the Warriors (4-1, 2-1 Dual County League Large) responded well on the field during the week, even if it took them awhile to get rolling against a pesky Waltham (2-3, 1-2 DCL Large) team Friday night.

“It was hard to bounce back [from last week],” Lopez said. “It wasn’t an easy bounce back. We have a good group of seniors. They worked hard. I am proud of the way we played. I thought we should have played a little better. I can say that, probably, after every game I’ve ever coached.”

Waltham kept L-S off the board in the first quarter with the help of a couple of key Warrior miscues before L-S put up 21 points in the second quarter. Kyle Smith’s first of two TD runs on the night was from six yards out and put the Warriors up 7-0 with 7:00 left in the half before Waltham struck right back with Ali Lubwama hitting Evan Clark with a 48-yard TD pass and a 7-6 game with 3:47 on the clock.

But L-S then finished the half strong with a 53-yard pass from senior QB Braden O’Connell to Smith pushing the ball to the Waltham 1-yard line before O’Connell scored on a quarterback sneak. L-S then used its timeouts to preserve time on the clock during a Waltham three-and-out, and made that pay off with James Dillon’s 45-yard TD run putting L-S up 21-6 at the half.

“We were flat coming into this game,” Keeney said. “I don’t know what it was because we had a great week of practice. If we come out and have the second quarter and second half like we did today, and the second half like we did against A-B last week, we think we’ll be a pretty hard team to beat. We just have to figure out what’s holding us back on getting fired up. Once we do that, we’ll be all set.”

L-S quickly pulled away in the second half when senior Jack Garrity recovered a fumble on a sack on Waltham’s first possession and a 21-yard Smith TD run made it 28-6 with 5:16 left in the third. Smith returned an interception 40 yards to the Waltham 15 on the next Hawk possession and O’Connell ran it in from 18 yards for a 34-6 lead.

Senior running back Alec Keilen capped the scoring with a 1-yard TD run in the fourth quarter.

Scott Souza can be reached at ssouza@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @Scott_Souza.